Hi peeps, we have Pat Henshaw stopping by with the blog tour for her newest re-release Redesigning Max, we have a fantastic guest post from Pat, a great excerpt, a brilliant $10 JMS Books GC giveaway and Prime’s review, so check out the post and enter that giveaway! ❤️ ~Pixie~
Redesigning Max
Pat Henshaw
Renowned interior designer Fredi Zimmer is surprised when outdoorsman Max Greene, owner of Greene’s Outdoors, hires him to revamp Max’s rustic cabin in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Fredi is an out-and-proud Metro male whose contact with the outdoors is from his car to the doorway of the million-dollar homes he remodels, and to Fredi, Max is a typical straight man’s man.
When Max blatantly and clumsily flirts with Fredi, Fredi’s stereotypical view of Max is shattered. Is this a build-up to a gay bashing? Cautiously believing Max is closeted and is trying to come out, Fredi decides he’s game to put a little spice into Max’s life, whether it’s in the colors and fixtures he’ll use to turn Max’s dilapidated cabin into a showplace or over one of the many lunches and dinners they share talking about the remodel. Who can blame a guy for adding a little sensual pleasure as he retools Max’s life visually? Besides, Fredi has a backup plan if he’s wrong about Max’s intentions.
Life would be all wine and roses if it weren’t for Max’s former friends and their conservative families. Alarmed with Max’s obvious infatuation, they make it their business to save him from sliding into hell.
With the battle on, will Fredi and Max win the fight for a life of happiness together?
Pat Henshaw!
During the pandemic, we’ve been doing our traveling by streaming. So far, we’ve been to New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Mallorca, and have just started a trip to India.
Streaming is a wonderful way to travel: no airline security, no dirty planes, no lost luggage. Just interesting people, intriguing plots, and beautiful scenery.
I’d like to share a few of the places we’ve visited in case you’d like to travel there yourself.
Our first stop is a little town in New Zealand with quirky and often funny people who are a complex mix of British and Maori. The Brokenwood Mysteries feature a detective chief inspector who has recently moved to the town from the city. He lives in the previous chief’s tiny house in the middle of a vineyard that’s tended by a young, handsome Maori gardener. Viewers not only get an interesting mystery to solve in each episode but also beaches, forests, and a lively cast of townspeople and self-selected hermits. One particularly colorful woman has a smelly possum cure to rub all over your face to get rid of bags under your eyes.
If the rural setting of Brokenwood isn’t to your liking, perhaps you’d rather travel to Melbourne, Australia, where you can either spend time with former Xena actress Lucy Lawless as she solves cold cases hither and yon in My Life Is Murder. Or you can spend time in a pub in suburban Fitzroy chatting with private investigator Jack Irish (Jack Irish) and his father’s old sporting buddies. Either way, you’ll get an interesting picture of Melbourne and some of the endearing characters who live and work there.
Maybe you’re looking for something more metropolitan and someone more slick and debonair like police detective Aurelio Zen played by Rufus Sewell (Zen), who will take you on a quick tour of Rome and environs. Not only do you get to see the metropolis but also the rural countryside and villas near the city.
The most exotic place we’ve visited is a three-way tie between a fictional Caribbean island (Death in Paradise), the oh-so-real isle of Mallorca (Mallorca Files), and India (The Good Karma Hospital). In each of these viewers get not only metropolitan scenes highlighting local bars and eateries but also trips out and about in the countryside to expensive villas and rural villages.
If you can’t travel anywhere these days, all of the television shows I’ve mentioned are an excellent way to armchair travel. Where have you been vicariously lately?
Oh, and speaking of places to visit, how about a stop at a former Gold Rush frontier town in Northern California that’s trying to become a tourist destination? Stone Acres, the setting for my Foothills Pride series, welcomes you with open arms.
In fact, JMS Books is republishing the Foothills Pride series with new covers and minimal editing from now through October.
Then in November and December, they’re reissuing Blame It on the Fruitcake, The Orpheum Miracle, and Making the Holidays Happy Again, my previously published holiday stories. I also hope to have a new holiday story out then too.
I guess the biggest news is that I’m working on additional novellas in the Foothills Pride series for 2021. There’s a lot coming and a lot in store for my readers.
Excerpt!
Designer Fredi and adventure guide Max go to lunch right after they meet:
By the time we got to the Rock Bottom Cafe, I felt like I’d bottomed out. I was hungry, tired, and feeling the first twinges of a headache.
Max hadn’t exaggerated about how much I’d hate the Rock Bottom’s decor. It was the worst of rural cafe: hellacious plastic flowers, grotesque plastic-covered booths, peeling gangrene-painted beadboard walls, pockmarked linoleum floor, and faded food-stained menus. It made the cabin look almost palatial, except it didn’t smell as bad.
As Max slid into one side of a booth and I into the other, he said, “Food’s great here. Okay?”
I glared at him, but I had to admit the odors coming from the kitchen wove seductively around us.
After we’d ordered and had gotten glasses of iced tea, which I liberally dosed with artificial sweetener, Max leaned back in his side of the booth and blew out a little breath.
“So guess here’s what you need to know about me.” He was looking at the tabletop. “I was an only kid when my folks died. Raised by my aunt and uncle with their four boys. I was the youngest and nobody cared what I thought, so I don’t talk much.”
Oh dear. I wasn’t sure which of those statements I should answer, if any. My heart bled for the beautiful man in front of me who would give me a raging hard-on if I let my libido take control.
His words and lack of self-pity made me want to create a unique space where he’d feel completely at home and that would soothe him when he needed it. I probably wouldn’t end up his BFF or someone he could unbend with, but I could create a warm cocoon to shelter and coddle the man or let him entertain his friends comfortably.
The image of the young Max feeling like an outsider when he was thrust on his uncaring aunt and uncle to raise was banished by the waitress who put lunch in front of us.
“Oh. My. God!” I nearly drooled into the chili and homemade bread as I tasted them. “This is incredible.”
“What’d I tell you?” Max gloated. “Said you shouldn’t be put off by the decor. Some of us are more than our decor.”
I spooned up a couple of bites, then looked at Max. “You really do think I’m a snob, don’t you?”
Why was it so easy to get him to blush? I hadn’t a clue, but his quick, mercurial red cheeks had me intrigued.
“No, no, I don’t think you’re a snob,” he protested. “I mean, you’re just so….” He waved a couple of fingers at me, but kept his elbows on the table as if protecting his bowl of chili.
“I’m so what?”
Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Beautiful. And fancy,” he added, ducking his head over his bowl.
Ah, I understood now. Max was intimidated by my suit.
“Look, you came to get me in the coffee shop. I was dressed to take a rich lady through her house later this afternoon. I can work in jeans and a T-shirt”—did Max think I wore suits every day?—“or anything I want. Pajamas even. You just caught me on a suit day.” Which, I didn’t add, was too often for even my overblown sense of style.
Now Max was staring at me.
“Yeah, right. You wear jeans,” he scoffed, but looked interested, intrigued.
I shrugged. “Okay, not when I’m with a client. At home I’m way more casual.” I might have sounded a tad defensive.
“Yeah, right,” Max muttered with a grin.
I left it lying there. It wasn’t worth fighting about. But it bothered me that he saw such a divide between us. I was just a man, wasn’t I? Just like him, right? What was he going on about? Sheesh.
Foothills Pride series!
What’s In a Name (Book 1)
.•.•.**❣️ Amazon US | Amazon UK ❣️**.•.•.
Behr Facts (Book 3)
.•.•.**❣️ Amazon US | Amazon UK ❣️**.•.•.
When Adam Fell (Book 4)
.•.•.**❣️ Amazon US | Amazon UK ❣️**.•.•.
About Pat!
Pat Henshaw, born and raised in Nebraska, has lived on the U S’s three coasts, in Texas, Virginia, and now California. Before she retired, she held a number of jobs, including theatrical costumer, newspaper features reporter and movie reviewer, librarian, junior college English instructor, and publicist. She also loves to travel and has visited Canada, Mexico, Europe, Egypt, and Central America as well as almost all fifty US states.
Now retired, she enjoys reading and writing as well as visiting her older daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren on the East Coast and playing havoc with her younger daughter’s life in NorCal. She thanks you for reading her books and wants you to remember that every day is a good day for romance.
Website | Facebook | FB Author Page | Twitter | QueeRomance Ink
Giveaway!
Win a $10 JMS Books GC!
Review
Title: Redesigning Max
Series: Foothills Pride, 02
Author: Pat Henshaw
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella (97 pages)
Publisher: JMS Books (29 July 2020)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: 💖💖💖💖💖 5 Hearts
Blurb: Renowned interior designer Fredi Zimmer is surprised when outdoorsman Max Greene, owner of Greene’s Outdoors, hires him to revamp Max’s rustic cabin in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Fredi is an out-and-proud Metro male whose contact with the outdoors is from his car to the doorway of the million-dollar homes he remodels, and to Fredi, Max is a typical straight man’s man.
When Max blatantly and clumsily flirts with Fredi, Fredi’s stereotypical view of Max is shattered. Is this a build-up to a gay bashing? Cautiously believing Max is closeted and is trying to come out, Fredi decides he’s game to put a little spice into Max’s life, whether it’s in the colors and fixtures he’ll use to turn Max’s dilapidated cabin into a showplace or over one of the many lunches and dinners they share talking about the remodel. Who can blame a guy for adding a little sensual pleasure as he retools Max’s life visually? Besides, Fredi has a backup plan if he’s wrong about Max’s intentions.
Life would be all wine and roses if it weren’t for Max’s former friends and their conservative families. Alarmed with Max’s obvious infatuation, they make it their business to save him from sliding into hell.
With the battle on, will Fredi and Max win the fight for a life of happiness together?
ISBN: 9781646565221
Product Link: JMS Books | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Reviewer: Prime
Review: When I read book 1 of this series, What’s in a Name? I had no idea that it was the start of the series. Now that I’ve devoured book 2, Redesigning Max, it is official, I love Pat Henshaw’s books.
But let me back track for a second: although both Foothill Pride books can be read as a standalone book with no real over arching plot, I have to say it is just a simple pleasure getting to know the guys of book 1, Jimmy and Guy, before you’re reacquainted with them again in book 2 as minor characters.
Thinking on it, I’ve decided that I’ve become a fan of Pat Henshaw’s writing. The characters just feel so real and in turn they are relatable to the reader. I love the personalities of the self-confessed twinks and the really quiet, stoic type of manly man.
Redesigning Max is about interior designer and architect, Fredi (not Fred). While sipping coffee, waiting for a client at his best mate’s cafe, Jimmy from book 1, he is approached by the rather socially inept Max. Max inherited a cabin and after asking another local, was recommended to hire Fredi to do the job. Fredi is full of energy and is very personable. He is, however, also a consummate professional.
Max on the other hand is socially awkward after a rough childhood of being ignored by his guardians. The two guys seem a bit odd together at first. But as the saying goes, opposites attract and the attraction between the guys goes from wonderfully awkward to super hot and sizzling.
Cannot wait for more!
